The Romanoff campaign’s news release assailing Coffman for the Friday vote came out Monday morning, just as the VA deal was being announced. “Congressman Coffman recently spent thousands of taxpayer dollars to send glossy brochures about sexual assault in the military, but given the opportunity to back up his words with actions, he failed,” Romanoff campaign spokeswoman Denise Baron[5] charged in the release.

Coffman campaign manager Tyler Sandberg[6] called the accusation “sleazy Washington politics at its worst.” Coffman voted against what he saw as a partisan motion Friday, he said, while working to ensure the sexual assault provisions survived through the conference committee.

“Mike has long advocated for serious sexual assault reform, and as a leader on the VA conference committee, ensured that it was included as part of the final deal,” Sandberg wrote in an e-mail to The Denver Post. Coffman served on the committee, headed by independent Sen. Bernie Sanders and Republican Rep. Jeff Miller.

Here’s what happened with the Friday vote highlighted by Romanoff’s campaign: Democrats made a procedural motion to instruct the House conferees on the VA bill to accept Senate provisions dealing with sexual trauma. Those included allowing current service members to take advantage of sexual assault counseling offered by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

In Coffman’s view, Sandberg said, the vote amounted to “procedural gotcha games” by Democrats. Baron disagreed: “Mike Coffman had an opportunity to help expand and improve the medical care available to sexual assault survivors, and he chose not to.”

But Sandberg argued the point was moot, in light of the conference committee deal. “That Andrew Romanoff would try to smear Mike Coffman is no surprise,” he said, “but he should have bothered to read the final deal before trying to use victims of sexual assault as props in his political attack against Mike Coffman.”

Coffman and Romanoff are vying in November to represent the 6th Congressional District, which covers Aurora, south Denver suburbs and part of Brighton.